Bare
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "He's a scotch and a half into a restless evening when there's a knock on the door. He's not expecting anyone, least of all her. Least of all her looking like this." A tag for Little Girl Lost (1 x 09). In the Unnamed series with "Count Me Out," "Can't," and "The One." After "Count Me Out" in series chronology.


Title: Bare

WC: ~2500

Rating: M

Summary: "He's a scotch and a half into a restless evening when there's a knock on the door. He's not expecting anyone, least of all her. Least of all her looking like this." A tag for Little Girl Lost (1 x 09). In the Unnamed series with "Count Me Out," "Can't," and "The One."

* * *

It's been a weary day. One that's left him feeling . . . unsettled. Shot down, if he's being introspective at all. Which he's not. He's definitely not.

He's a scotch and a half into a restless evening when there's a knock on the door. He's not expecting anyone, least of all her. Least of all her looking like this.

They face each other across the threshold, silent and staring. It's not exactly fair. The fact that it's a two-way thing. It's his doorstep, after all, and he's not the one with several miles of bare leg that were definitely not in evidence when she tossed a parting shot over her shoulder just a few hours ago.

_Maybe there__'__s a little more Nikki Heat in me than you think._

"Beckett?"

It's a question. He doesn't plan it that way, but it's too late now. Something vulnerable in her winks out entirely, like it was never there. Like he imagined it. Something young and uncertain behind her eyes. The balance of power shifts as it goes. She steps past him into the loft without invitation.

"Home alone?"

That's _not_ a question, somehow. It's something like an order. A statement of how it is or how it's about to be.

He nods anyway, not that she sees it. Not that she's paying him any mind as she strides further into the room like she's surveying a scene.

"Alone," he adds pointlessly.

Her jacket slides from her shoulders to the crook of one finger. Her arms are bare, too. There's not a lot of her that isn't bare. Her hair is mussed and the liner is thick around her eyes, like she smudged it in a hurry.

"I thought you had a date?"

It's a stupid thing to say for so many reasons. She lets him know it. She turns away without a word to drape her jacket over the bannister. The silvery grey material of her dress falls from wide straps to pool just where her spine dips inward. It's a short trip from there to the flare of her hips. It ends not far beyond. A line of demarcation somewhere between elegant and indecently short.

It makes him bold. All of it. The dress. The slash of lipstick two shades darker than he's ever seen on her. Bare skin all up and down. It makes him crazy. He puts his hands on her, even though he knows better by now. One on her elbow, the other at her shoulder.

"I thought. You had. A date?"

He spins her toward him. She's outraged, but so is he, now that there's skin on skin.

"Did," she shoots back. "Boring."

She rolls her eyes, and for one second, he sees it again. That . . . innocence. Collusion. A Kate Beckett who comes out to play sometimes. Who likes to get away with things and makes this—all _this_, whatever it is—so fucking complicated.

His hands drop away from her. It's all he can do to keep from knotting them safe behind his back. She notices. Arches an eyebrow and stares him down.

He blinks first. Not like there was another option. Not like there was any possible outcome other than that.

"You want a drink?"

He turns away. He starts to, but it's her reaching for him this time. It's her letting an arm snap taut just before she tugs. Before she reels him in. It's her sliding her fingers into his hair and her mouth over his.

"Had one," she breathes. Her tongue snakes out. It touches the corner of his lips and ventures inside. Quick. Furtive. Just a taste. "You too."

She grins. Toe to toe with him. That other Beckett._ Kate._ Another instant, and she's gone again. She's killing him, coming and going like this.

He reaches for her. Hardly necessary, this close, but he pulls her into his body. One palm glides across her back. Shoulder blade to shoulder blade, raising a shiver. The other trails the length of her arm, collar bone to wrist. He hooks her bracelet with a finger tip. _Bracelets. _A tall tangle of hammered silver bangles. Dissonance where her father's watch should be.

"One?" The hand at her back comes up quick to sink into the rucked up mess of her hair. To hold her there. The chain around her neck is missing, too. Her mother's ring. He kisses her. He kisses this version of her. The one that walks in the world like this. _Bare._ "Just one?"

"Enough." It's more ragged than it should be. She pushes and pulls at his body and he knows she wanted it angry. Tough and careless, but it's ragged. She tries to recover. A hard smile and heavy lidded eyes. "Too much for you?"

She rakes her fingernails down his chest, lighting fast. Her palm heads south. He's ahead of her for once, though, reflexes honed by something he wishes were anger. He has her by both wrists. He has her against the door. Her body aligned exactly with his, courtesy of some kind of strappy sandals with heels even higher than her ridiculous version of everyday.

"Enough," he growls against her lips.

The kiss is rough. Impatient. He feels her smile, like the power's swinging back her way again already. It frustrates him. _She_ frustrates him. Pisses him off. Makes him crazy.

He drags his mouth from hers. Drags his teeth down her throat, marking. Sucking and biting and lapping. She's twisting against him, writhing and pressing closer. Tugging hard at his hair, but she's just holding on. Barely holding on as he skims the strap from one shoulder.

Her skin is a contradiction. Flushed bright with heat and rising in shivers as his mouth hovers over it.

"Was it him?" He coasts his lips over the peak of her breast. His tongue flicks out in an unrelenting rhythm. Bypassing. Returning. Making her reach for it, and she does. She thrusts up toward it, shoulders back. "Sorenson?"

Her head connects solidly with the door. She's rigid with fury. It's there. Just there beneath her ribs. Beneath the stuttering line of her breastbone. Rippling beneath her skin.

He kisses his way back up. The inside of one breast. The other. The dip between her collar bones. He's slow about it. Patient, where she's furious. This is power, though he doesn't much like the taste.

He softens. Loosens the hold he still has on one wrist.

She catches her breath. Draws up for a fight just when he's backing down. Her eyes open wide, dark and unreadable. Nearly unreadable.

His head dips once, his mouth stopping just shy of hers. He waits, unmoving, for something. _Something _from her before he falls in anyway. Before he falls deeper into whatever this is, headlong and stupid.

"It wasn't him." It's not a question this time. He kisses her. A soft brush of lips, like he can taste the truth.

Her head rolls against the door. The merest side to side as her lips part. As she nips lazily at his.

"But you miss him." He presses his hips forward, anticipating the jerk of her body at that. His fingers drop to the hem of her dress. He hikes it up, working quickly. Keeping her off balance as his fingers skate over one thigh and up the inside curve of the other.

"You miss him." He says it again, his palm spread wide, just barely brushing the lace of her panties.

"Yes." Her head falls forward. She lands a savage bite at his throat that's only half bare skin. She arcs her hips hard into his hand. "Yes, I fucking miss him."

"Don't." He anchors the heel of his hand against her. His fingers are quick, darting low. Dancing beneath fabric to stroke her clit, light and hard, fast and slow. "_Don__'__t_ miss him." He kisses her neck. Tugs at her earlobe with his teeth and hisses as he sinks one finger into the wet, burning heat of her. He covers her mouth sloppily with his own, but the words keep coming. "You're so much more . . . _Kate_ . . ."

It dissolves into a frantic, one-sided conversation. _Don__'__t. More. So much . . ._ her name. It's all bitten off syllables as she clings to him. Urges him on with nothing like words until the very last instant. Until a second finger joins the first and his thumb circles and circles just so. Until one arm flies high over her head and her nails scrabble uselessly at the door's metal frame for purchase.

"I don't." The words break free in the end. A long stream of repetition that winds up and unfurls as her hips rock toward him, again and again. "_I don__'__t I don__'__t I don__'__t I don__'__t.__" _

"Good." He says as she finally works her way down. It's absurd. Stubborn, petulant punctuation that he can't believe he's hearing. He can't believe it actually makes it out of his own mouth.

But she laughs. A nearly airless huff at the corner of his jaw as she leans on him. _Good. _

There's no sound. No air. She's heavy and boneless against him. He feels her lips move in the shape of the word. The purse of the _o_s and the hard _d _against her teeth. It's intimate. A soft, stubborn thing he feels like he wasn't meant to hear.

He blushes. Disentangles himself and smooths her dress down over her hip. He settles the pretty fabric along her thigh. He raises his eyes to hers. Makes up his mind to . . . apologize or something. To get them both out of this alive somehow.

But she catches him by the ear. A tug, but gentle for her. She slides a hand under his jaw like it's a delicate thing. She kisses him.

He's stunned. He must be stunned. She says his name twice. Softly first. _Castle?_ A question, then something else. Uncertainty and embarrassment flaring. An edge that will be anger before too long at all. _Castle. _

He kisses her back. A quick succession before she can think. Before she can change her mind.

"I want . . ." She breaks off. Frustrated with herself. Frustrated with _him, _judging from the flurry of brusque tugs at his clothes. At button and cuff and belt and zipper.

"I _want_," she says, and it's satisfied this time. Hidden half behind a long groan from him as she wraps a hand around him and _strokes._

He thinks for a wild moment about his bed. The couch. A chair. Some fucking _horizontal surface _to lay her down on. To work her body slowly beneath his. To take all the time in the world with her. He thinks about sliding the dress down her body and slipping off her shoes. Raising her hands high above her head and silencing the music of bangles in a soft profusion of linen.

But that isn't how this works. This works with the drag of her fingers over his hips as she backs him into a corner by the door. As she sinks to her knees and _dear God_ takes him deep into her mouth, sucking hard and not quite releasing. This works with him saying, _Please. Please, Kate _and the words not quite making it out loud.

"Beckett." He manages that with his fingers digging into her skin hard enough to make her wince. "Sorry," he says as he ducks swiftly to catch her under the arms. "Sorry."

She fights at first. Her shoulders twist and she uses her nails at his hips. But his thumbs brush the outsides of her breasts, fabric slipping low on one side, bare skin on the other. Her back arches like she doesn't have a say so and he eases her the rest of the way up, skimming his mouth over each swell as she rises.

"Kate," he whispers. "Please. I want . . ."

Her head tips forward. A nod that ends with a kiss at the corner of his mouth. He turns her. She lets him. There's the usual awkward flurry of movement that does nothing at all to dull the edge between them. Her hands come up to push the shirt from his shoulders. A last defiant gesture that makes him smile. That makes his heart clench as he falls against her and she opens to him, bare thighs curling around his.

They move together. Slower and more aching than the times he's lost count of because he doesn't think about them. He's not allowed to think about them. That isn't how this works, even when she tastes like this. Even when his eyes slip open to memorize her in this light and he finds her staring back. Memorizing him. Here. Now. With lips parted and brow furrowed.

That's not how this works. His eyes close against the unfairness of it. The lunacy. His hips jerk hard into her. Rough and erratic. She buries a cry in his neck, and he can't wait. He can only move. _Hard. Harder. _Until he can't see anything at all. Until he doesn't know if it's words or motion. His or hers or both.

"Castle. _Castle_."

She's fluttering something like kisses at his ear, but the tone is sharp. Sharper by the second. He rocks back from her, flushing. Embarrassed. She checks his movement. Her fingers stay him, falling to his ribs.

"Breathe," she says. "Need to breathe."

"Sorry," he says again. Maybe again. He's lost count, and he doesn't know if she means him or her. He doesn't know.

She seems to. Her fingers are cool on his skin. She lounges against the wall like they do this all the time. Like they take each other apart in the front hall two or three times a week. Like it's so commonplace they've lost count.

"Bathroom?" she asks after a quiet minute. Something he thinks she's giving him.

He freezes. His mind stalls, arrested by the image of her in bathroom mirror. His own face appearing as he crowds behind her to slip the robe from her shoulders. Something short and silk she keeps here. Hers, not borrowed. Him chasing the silvery-grey fabric with his lips. Tugging her through to the bedroom and falling together into dark linen.

"Castle?" Her voice is sharp again. Losing patience with his reverie.

"Upstairs," he murmurs. He steps aside and gestures. "Second door on the left."

She slips by him with a nod. Gratitude and no embarrassment. Nothing like shame, and there's that at least.

He dresses. Rearranges his clothes and puts himself back together, anyway. She's quick, though. No time to kill at all before she's making her way back down the stairs.

She's perfect again. As neat as she intended to be, though she doesn't seem to have the lipstick with her. His fingers flicker over his Adam's apple like he might find it there. A hint of color. She smiles a little, like she knows.

"Do you. . ." He stops. He tries to stop, but he has to say _something. _"Do you . . . can I get you anything?"

She shakes her head.

He pushes. Lost and angry about it. "A drink?"

"Had one," she says, and it's not unkind, even though she's slipping back into her jacket. Even though her hand is on the doorknob. She lets her fingers slip from the silver. She turns to him. She kisses him once and goes.

He tells himself it's not unkind.

* * *

A/N: I do not feel good about defiling the door. The person to blame knows who she is.


End file.
